Leaving Home (And Geting Back Again)
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Poppy Moore leaves home to go to boarding school. And then she goes back again. And then it's back to school.
1. Chapter 1

**This will be a series of short one-shots set through the film and probably slightly after, definitely into the post-credits scene x Please read and review x**

She knows she is damaged. She will admit that, if only to herself, but it's not like she'll let anyone else so much as think it. So she covers it up and knows she goes too far sometimes but at least they ate thinking 'where did her father go wrong with raising her?', followed by a pang of pity and sympathy, than how screwed up she is.

She prefers it that way.

She is honestly surprised though by her father's decision to send her to England. He's been threatening it for so long now she'd stopped believing it when he'd said it.

Only this time it seems to be for real. This time her father seems to have well and truly lost his patience with her.

Which had been the aim of her little stunt anyway.

So why did it feel do wrong?

She couldn't get the unsettling feeling out of her head as she packed, even after Ruby came over to say goodbye and help. To distract herself she decided to look up the school, all red brick and ancient. She didn't think she'd ever so much as stepped foot in a building as old. After all there weren't exactly many Malibu shopping malls that looked like that around.

The day she'd left had been hard. Ruby had dropped by in the morning, tearful and wearing the shoes Poppy had given her. They hugged and Ruby was gone within ten minutes.

Molly had clung to her, tight as a limpet, looking far too young for her age. Poppy felt a brief spurt of worry, not knowing how her sister would be able to stand up for herself without her around.

But Molly would be alright. She was strong - far stronger than Poppy. She was an awful lot less messed up in the head as well. Even Poppy could see that - and she didn't need a therapist to tell her.

Her father was coming to England with her. She suspected it was more for the business he had in mind than actually wanting to see her off.

She refused to speak to him at all on the plane.

The journey had been tense and restless, neither of them knowing quite what to say to the other and neither of them open enough to express their feelings in public.

She would be fine, she told herself. She would be out of there in no time. If the father who professed to love her so much couldn't even best to keep her around, what chance did this posh school have?

They'd probably be begging her to leave by the end of the month.

And then she could go home, with Molly and Ruby. After she was home she'd never speak to her father again.

But only once she was home. In the meantime she kind of needed him to get there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry this one is so much shorter :) Please read and review x**

When she gets to the school it's just as bad as she'd imagined. It's all red brick and hedges and gravel on the driveways. It's the kind of place she sees on old British films, the kind where she switches the channel or leaves the room as soon as it comes on.

Only she can't switch this channel and walking in that grass will only ruin her shoes. God knows she's already had to rescue most of them by donating them to Molly and Ruby.

So it looks like - for now - she's going to have to stay.

But that doesn't mean she'll like it - and God knows she'll let them know that. She'll let all of them know that very well, with as much humiliation as possible.

Sadly the beginning of her revenge plan falls flat, her clothes ruined in this horrible English weather and at least two of her bottles of beer smashed, leaking into her cashmere sweater.

That bit has failed then - she hoped to shock them. If they were half as bad as her father, they would've heard multiple stereotypes about Americans that she wished to prove right, just to annoy them.

Well then. She's going to have to get creative.

This _will_ be fun...


	3. Chapter 3

She's surprised that she gets along with the other girls in her room. She's never shared before, not unless it was a sleepover, and she hadn't exactly expected to get on with these four girls who are so different from her. They are from different worlds, where she dyes her hair blonde and flaunts the dress code and they attempt to stop her.

But no matter their differences, they seem to support her decision to want to get out of here and they are willing to help her.

She's only had to be a complete prat to get there with their help. It seems to have been worth it. After all the other students seem perfectly accepting on her and the only ones she really needed to get on with were her roommates (done) and the Head Girl (so far from done its funny).

She feels slightly ashamed, because she knows that her own friends wouldn't be as generous to a stranger in their group. They would probably have teased them mercilessly until even fresher meat came along.

But these girls don't. They help her dye the school pool purple and publicly humiliate the French teacher and swap things and colour code things just to annoy people. And she's the only one to get caught.

They moan about Harriet with her, and come up with wilder and stranger ideas to kick her out, some of which she doesn't think are actually legal.

They sound fun either way.

These girls are becoming her friends, proper friends. The kind of friends she actually felt she could tell anything to, to be honest with.

She thinks she'll miss them when she leaves. She'll have to make sure that she texts them after she's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**And here's Freddie... Please read and review :)**

And then there's Freddie.

He'd started off being her ticket out of here, after every other method had failed. But then he'd become someone real, someone funny and dependable, the kind of guy she'd never had before.

All the rest of the guys she'd dated were jerks and expected her to sleep with him. They expected things from her that she didn't want to offer and spent their lives bragging to their friends about what they had done with this girl and that girl, not caring about the girl herself.

Well, not Freddie. She was done with them. Freddie was sweet.

And she liked it - and she liked him. He was nice and adorable and so bloody _English_.

This would be so much easier if he had acne or awful hair or terrible teeth. Instead he was almost too perfect, the kind of dream guy where if she blinked she knew she would wake up.

Girls like her didn't get to keep boys like Freddie. She was too screwed up for it.

Poppy didn't know if she wanted to leave anymore, never mind use him to get there. She couldn't break his heart and she didn't want to, not like she'd first planned.

She didn't want to leave him - any of them - behind.

Going home suddenly seemed like a bad idea.

And how she was going to get there seemed even worse.


	5. Chapter 5

There is an email. It's something she hasn't written but looks like something she might have one wrote.

And her friends know that.

And because of that they believe what is written.

They believe that she thinks that they are stupid and boring and every other horrible thing she can think of. They think she _wrote_ those things. _Freddie_ thinks she wrote those things.

And what with the fire and the implications that that has, she honestly can't muster up the energy to change their minds.

They have made their decision - to not listen to her, to not hear her explanations. They don't believe in her.

She supposes that this is what she gets for letting someone through her walls, but she can't fault it because she enjoyed it while it lasted. It's only now that it's ended that it hurts, and even so she wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

She is going to Honour Court tomorrow and she already knows how that will end and her heart breaks at the thought of it.

Isn't it odd how fast the wind can change?

Because she spent the first half of the year trying to get out of this school and now that she knows she'll be leaving, she can't bear the thought of going.


	6. Chapter 6

The Honour Court starts off exactly how she thought it would and then veers abruptly off course.

It starts with Harriet going ballistic on her, and making herself sound stupid in the process and Mrs Kingsley trying to calm everyone down, even though she's got to be understandably annoyed with Poppy for apparently toying with her son's heart.

It ends with her friends, or at least she thinks they are, starting to suddenly stand up for her - quite literally - and the rest of the school seems to follow in their example.

To make everything even better, Harriet had been so annoyed that she'd exposed herself as the actual arsonist. Poppy very much doubts that Harriet will be around for much longer, because that is the first time she's actually seen Mrs Kingsley angry before - with Poppy she's always been sad, disappointed and slightly exasperated.

And Poppy was staying. She was staying at Abbey Mount because she was innocent and _somehow_ her friends knew that she hadn't sent those horrible emails. She had friends, proper friends, who believed her enough though all the evidence was stacked against her.

She had people who cared.

She had Mrs Kingsley.

She had the girls.

And she might even have Freddie, if he heard the results of the Honour Court.

She had a home - she was already there.

And she was _so_ glad that she didn't have to leave.


	7. Chapter 7

When her father turns up to watch her lacrosse match, she doesn't know what to think. Sure, he abandoned her here, but it was the best decision of his life, because she l_oves_ it here.

He knew she would love it here.

He'd known that her mother had gone here.

He had done it for her, and it had turned out _well_, so she decided she was going to even bother holding a grudge. She ran up to him and hugged him, like she hadn't done since she was a little girl, because it America it wasn't cool, wasn't what the popular kids did. She didn't care here because they liked her anyway.

She was glad he was here, because she'd missed him (and Molly), even when she hadn't wanted to admit it to herself, and because she hadn't had the chance to apologise for what she had done on the cliff - not that she'd wanted to before.

But still, she was sad he was here because her first thought was that he was here to take her back home, and she didn't want to go because she was already _there_.

Why would she want to leave?

Poppy hoped her father wouldn't make her - and wasn't that a complete change of heart?


	8. Chapter 8

In the end, she goes back to Malibu with her father, because she knows it isn't for good. It's just the holiday she needs, some sun and a decent tan.

Her dad makes everything better by letting her invite her friends though.

She can't wait, all five of them on sun loungers, sitting by the pool, seeing how the other half of the world lives when there's much less rain.

It turns out that Freddie is coming too. After all this time, being unable to fraternise with the girls, and Mrs Kingsley decides that Poppy _Moore_ is the girl she can trust with her son.

She must be mad.

But Poppy already knows that - the headmistress had let her stay, even after some of the pranks she'd pulled.

She can't wait to be back in Malibu, as long as they're coming with her. She wants to see Molly, because they haven't spoken properly since she was packed off to England, and Poppy wants to surprise her with how much she's changed. That will be easy.

She wants her friends to meet her little sister too, and to apologise to her dad's girlfriend for everything, even though she still doesn't really like her.

But still, you can't have everything in the world, can you?


	9. Chapter 9

Her friends enjoy Malibu - it's sunny, with not a rain cloud in sight, very different to the dreary English weather.

Even Poppy has missed getting a tan.

And seeing Freddie in nothing but swimming trunks...

Even her friends had been drooling, and they were the ones who knew that Freddie had been taken.

Poppy was surprised that her dad let all of them stay in the house, what with a teenage boy around his teenage daughter, but then again her father had always been pretty laid back. It was how she'd gotten away with most of the tricks she'd pulled before the pool thing.

And step-mum still doesn't like her for that.

But still, the holiday is nice while it lasts and she enjoys seeing her father and Molly again. The pair of them seem equally delighted and bewildered at Poppy's complete change in attitude, but don't comment.

Poppy has decided that she might be screwed up, and showing that doesn't make her weak.

Like Kate says, it makes her normal.

And no matter how good the holiday is, she's going back to Abbey Mount after the summer ends - and maybe even before.

And this time she can't _wait_ to get there.


End file.
